Called to a building or called to a city?

At a recent meeting of the local Ministerial Alliance, I asked each Pastor how they got to their church. The answers were typical of what you would expect from a mixed group denominations and non-denominational churches. Some were sent by their Area Presbyter, some were called by the church Pulpit Committee, some were the original Church Planter for that local work. As you read the New Testament and the accounts of the Apostles as they managed the sending of teachers to the various Gentile churches and the follow up work with each church, you find an awareness of the state of the city and the effect it has in the spirit realm on evangelizing that city. Read the accounts of Paul dealing with the goddess of Artemis in the book of Acts for instance. Note that the Epistles written to believers at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and Philippi address a church in a city. While believers may have met in multiple locations there was an identity of one church in a city fighting one enemy in the spirit to advance one Kingdom of God. Now my point in this blog entry is to challenge Pastors how we look at our local churches and how we prioritize our mission. Were you called to a church? Or were you called to a city? Jesus sent His disciples into every city where he Himself would come (Luke 10:1). They were sent to a city to find houses or families to minister to in the authority delegated to them for healing. Because we see ourselves as Pastors called to a church we never feel the weight of responsibility for a visitation of the Spirit of God as we come to see “our church” as our whole world and we are so consumed with it that we do not have time, resources, or vision for the city unless they come to us first and are enough like us to warrant our time, attention, and our very conditional unconditional love. The result is the city rarely sees us as an entity of influence and our growth models typically are the result of we gained because of another churches loss or in other words the best facilities with the most charismatic personality of a preacher attracts the most transfer growth. If you go back to the passages of Luke 10 and Matthew 10 and others like them you will find that Jesus sent the disciples to people who were not ideal new church members but to people who were in need of healing and would require time spent in the home with them to bring that healing into manifestation. I want to challenge you today to consider dismantling your concepts of church growth and return to the Biblical model of searching out those who need a physician over those who have ready made gifts and talents to plug in and search out those in need over those who can contribute to meeting the weekly budget. How I like to say it is too radical for some but go minister to the community and watch your self build a church by accident. You see Jesus is waiting on you to set your sights on the community as a whole and take responsibility for it. You see, Jesus is waiting on you to move so He can move and show Himself in your city. Stand up, leave your building, and go be a forerunner of Christ and reap a visitation of God in your city today.